


Unconscious

by watcherofworlds



Series: Whumptober 2019 [10]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Episode: s01e14 The Odyssey, Gen, Missing Scene, Prompt Fill, Whumptober, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-09 01:07:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20986289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watcherofworlds/pseuds/watcherofworlds
Summary: Prompt fill for Whumptober Day 10 "Unconscious"





	Unconscious

**Author's Note:**

> Here's something I've always wanted to write- one of the moments between Dig and Felicity in 1x14 that we didn't get to see because the story cut away to flashbacks.

“Ah!” Diggle shouted. “It’s less stressful when he’s jumping off rooftops!” Felicity was still relatively new to the experience of being involved in Oliver’s vigilante crusade, but she imagined that was true. Even though Oliver’s latest brush with death had turned out to be a false alarm, her heart was still pounding in her chest, adrenaline still rushing through her veins. In fact, she didn’t think her pulse had slowed to an acceptable rate since the moment she had found Oliver bleeding in the backseat of her car.

Now, with Oliver lying unconscious on a table nearby, recovering from his near death experience, Felicity felt tense and on edge, and jittery like she’d had too much coffee. When she looked down at her hands, they were shaking. In this brief moment of quiet, with Oliver still out of it, she could admit to herself that she had fallen for him, and the thought of just how close she’d come to losing him forever terrified her.

“This bow,” she said to distract herself from it, picking the object in question up from the table on which it lay, “has put arrows in quite a few people.” She drew it experimentally, the bowstring creaking as she struggled to pull it back to a full draw. She managed most of the way, but no further.

“Yeah, bad people,” Diggle replied.

“That doesn’t bother you?” Felicity asked, holding Oliver’s bow in its almost fully drawn position for a moment before releasing it and setting it back down on the table. “Because- and I mean this in a good way- you seem like the kind of guy it would bother.”

“When I was in Afghanistan, my unit was tasked with protecting this local warlord,” Diggle said by way of reply. “Gholem Qadir. Qadir was less than human. He sold opium. Sold children.” At that, Felicity whipped her head around to look at him, not sure if she was more shocked by the statement or the blunt, matter of fact way he’d delivered it.

“One day, we were accompanying him to Mosul when my convoy was ambushed by insurgents,” Diggle went on. “We had them outgunned. The firefight didn’t last more than a minute. When the smoke cleared, I moved in on their position. They were all dead, and I knew which one I had killed. When I pulled off his keffiyeh, I could see he was just a kid, no more than eighteen. I killed this kid to protect this… human piece of garbage, and I thought, ‘Am I still good? Am I still a good man?’ Doing this with Oliver, doing what we do, I feel good again, for the first time in a long time.”

“And that’s worth all the collateral damage?” Felicity asked, looking over her shoulder at where Oliver lay. 

“I haven’t killed anyone, if that’s what you’re asking,” Diggle replied.

“But he has,” Felicity pointed out, walking over to stand at Oliver’s side.

“Unfortunately,” Diggle said, coming to stand just behind her, “there are always casualties when you’re fighting a war.” Looking down at Oliver, lying utterly still except for the rise and fall of his breathing, and seeing, really, truly  _ seeing _ him for the first time, Felicity could see what Diggle meant. It seemed Oliver had suffered many of those casualties himself- the skin of his bare torso and arms was marked by scars in dozens of places, so many that Felicity quickly lost track trying to count them all, and she was sure that there were many more that she couldn’t see, not just physical scars but mental and emotional ones as well. Not to mention the fact that less than an hour ago she’d watched him almost die. The universe had clearly taken its pound of flesh from him, and there was no doubt that it would take much more before his crusade was finished.

“Are you alright?” Diggle asked, still standing behind her. “You’re awfully quiet. It’s not like you.” Felicity didn’t know whether to feel flattered that he’d noticed that about her or embarrassed that she apparently talked so much that her silence was such an obvious marker of her distress.

“Honestly?” she said. “I don’t know. This is definitely  _ not _ how I expected my night to go. I thought I’d go home, zone out to Netflix for a couple of hours, and then go to bed. I didn’t expect to find out that my boss is the vigilante, and I certainly didn’t expect to watch him almost die.” She punctuated her ramble with a deep, gasping breath, getting back the oxygen she’d lost with that rush of words. The Foundry was silent for a moment, except for the sound of Diggle’s shoes on the concrete floor as he moved to stand on the other side of the table on which Oliver lay, across from where Felicity stood.

“You really care about him,” he observed, noticing the way Felicity had, without being consciously aware of it at the time, laced her fingers through Oliver’s.

“It’d be hard  _ not _ to care about someone who’s life I helped save,” Felicity replied, deflecting so that she wouldn’t have to face or reveal the true depths of her feelings. She hastily disentangled her fingers from Oliver’s and took a step back away from him, hoping Diggle wouldn’t press her about what he’d just observed. He didn’t, seeming to realize that he wouldn’t get a straight answer, and for that, Felicity was grateful. There were far more important things to be concerned with than her feelings for her boss.


End file.
